Dresden

25.05.2007 - 26.05.2007 28 °C
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Left Berlin on Friday morning, the weather here is super hot. The train down to Dresden was completely full (only worked out after wards that was the Friday of a long weekend...) Managed to get seats on the train, there were others that spent the whole trip walking up and down the train trying to find a seat

Arrived at Dresden Neustadt Bahnhof and wandered outside to blazing sun. After a few technical difficulties, ie Einbahnstrasse means one-way street and isn't the street name... we managed to find our way to the hostel. Dropped our bags and headed back towards town with a map this time. Dropped past the station for a beer to accompany our map reading and decided to head for the altstadt (old town). Wandered down through a street market and crossed Augustusbrucke (a bridge) and entered the altstadt.

This place is amazing, the buildings are so decorative, Germany must have so many stone people! Headed back towards the hostel after planning what to do the next day over a currywurste and another beer at one of the Imbiss at the market.

(Germany has heaps of these street stalls called Imbiss which serve various sorts of wurste (sausage) and always have beer available. It isn't unusual to see people having a beer mid morning )

Saturday we had all day to spend in Dresden, we left our packs in a locker at the Neustadt Bahnhof and walked back to the altstadt. We bought a day pass to the museums and checked them out. Saw a whole bunch of paintings by the old masters and also Dresdens crown jewels. Also went into a museum that had heaps of swords, suits of armour and old guns made out of ivory and stuff. Amazing how decorative all these things are...

About lunch time heard huge claps of thunder and it started pouring, cool thunder storm soaked absolutely everything except for us 'cause we'd put our newly aquired umbrellas in our daypack even so we did shelter for a while in the Dom (cathedral) This the cathedral that was almost entirely obliterated by the allies during the second world war and has now been completely rebuilt (as has a lot of the altstadt)